Return To The Shattered Earth

Thomas Journal 1

Goddess Blush: Durvishire

27

JAN/09

Gelid came to find me at the church while I was making more poultices, He reminded me that it was Goddess Blush, and that it was time to buy sacrifices for her. He only had 5 silvers to spend, but I’d managed to save up 20 silvers, so I offered to go in on some jewelry with him and see if we couldn’t get something decent. We went to the market and watched for awhile, and determined that two of the merchants selling trinkets were totally untrustworthy, so we watched a couple other ones. The first sold goods that looked quite nice, but Gelid said that they were enchanted to look nicer, so we left his shop – though not before I told him that he might be better served to be honest with his customers. He was not impressed, and blew us off, so we went to the other merchant. This one was a crotchety but decent-seeming fellow named Anthony Grimaldi – shorter than we were, and old, He had all kinds of mechanical things in his wagon, which Gelid took an immediate interest in. Gelid picked a particular ring, and I took one as well, paying the fellow after a bit of negotiation. We got an incredible deal, paying only 25 silvers for two nice rings, and left to return to our homes…

...but we got ambushed by Aaron Daris and his cronies. They surrounded us and demanded the rings, but I wouldn’t part with them. Wayland Carver tried to grab the ring from me, and Gelid punched him in the face! I’ve never seen him so mad, not even when they tied him to a scarecrow two months ago. Stephen Montgomery grabbed me from behind and held me, so I slammed my head into his jaw, and Twig Stark-Smith took that opportunity to kick me in the stones, I don’t think I’d ever felt so much pain before. That stunned me long enough for Aaron to grab the ring away from me and run, and the bullies let me go and ran. Gelid and I ran off after them, but Twig pulled a shard of glass from his sleeve and swung it at me, then fled faster than we could chase. It was then that I realized how much it hurt, and I doubled over in pain. Doug Ironhammer helped us after the bullies ran away. giving me some ale to dull the pain, and when we said they stole our ring, he gave us another one – an incredible ring carved out of solid ruby! He told us to hold onto it until it was time to sacrifice it, and then I asked if we could do anything to repay him for his kindness. He asked that we go get some supplies from the warehouse down by the docks, so we took his handcart and headed out.

On the way to the docks, we saw Jack Vance standing guard as he usually did – but something was wrong. It was cold out, and we didn’t see his breath… so we went up and called his name, and then tapped him. He fell over flat onto the ice, stone dead! We ran back to find Mr. Ironhammer and tell him what happened, and he came back to the warehouse with us, leaving Lita behind to guard his stall. We found drag marks where Jack Vance used to be lying, leading to a hole in the ice. He told us to not talk too much about it, and to get the supplies and then go home. We went into the warehouse, but while we were there, we saw some light inside – the four bullies were inside, gloating over their prize. They noticed something written on it, and read the inscription out loud – the ring cracked and they started yelling at Twig, who broke it! Then a huge tentacle reached out of a hole in the floor and yanked him off his feet, dragging him into the crawlspace! Gelid and I froze in place up in the catwalk, watching in horror as Aaron Daris cowered in a corner, Wayland Carver fled and Stephan Montgomery pulled out a piece of chalk, drawing some sort of protective circle on the floor. We climbed down and pushed a crate into the hole to block it, and then Twig’s voice came out from under the crate, asking us to come down under the floor… But we’d seen him get hurt too badly to talk, so we grabbed Aaron, who was not moving out of the corner, and Stephan and Gelid and I ran back to the entrance, carrying Aaron over our shoulders. Before we could reach the doors, another tentacle reached out of the darkness beneath the floor and grabbed Stephan by the ankles, slamming his head down on a wagon and yanking him under the warehouse! Gelid and I ran out to find Mr. Ironhammer and told him what happened, so he sent two guards into the warehouse – and they came out a few minutes later with Stephan and Twig, who looked like nothing bad happened to them! We told Mr. Ironhammer not to believe it, especially since I called Twig “Tadpole”, an old name that he hated being called, and he didn’t react at all. Mr. Ironhammer told us to keep the ring with us, and we left to go towards the Torchiere.